New Interns — doctors who have completed four years of medical school but now are entering their careers and specialty training — are in their first weeks on the job at medical centers throughout Hawaiʻi through a partnership between local hospitals and the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) that began nearly 50 years ago.

The major medical centers agreed to become academic medical centers, partnering with UH medical school faculty who are based within the hospitals, to train both 3rd and 4th year medical students from the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) and the physician Interns, Residents and eventually Fellows (read more below about the different categories) in post-medical school training that is required before doctors can practice medicine on their own. JABSOM faculty supervise the future physicians, often while providing patient care within the medical centers. Most U.S. medical schools have their own University medical centers, but like UH, there are a few that are community-based, relying on the collaboration between the medical community and the school to train future doctors, and maintain high medical standards worthy of national academic medical center program accreditation.

Beginning the Residency is a joyous time, for it signals a great accomplishment: having succeeded in completing medical school, earning the title of doctor. But it also is a relentless years-long period of testing. Long hours, many extreme highs and sometimes crushing lows as the doctors begin to take on the heavy burden that healers assume. We were privileged to meet some of our new Residents in Internal Medicine and Family Medicine just before their Residencies began – and are honored to share their welcome into medical service with you. Doctors, thank you for choosing such challenging careers .. to serve others.

Graduate Medical Education is especially important in addressing the physician shortage locally. More than 80% of the doctors who graduate from JABSOM and perform their residency training here remain in the islands to serve patients.

Terms in Graduate Medical Education, which follows earning a degree as a physician:Information courtesy of Wikipedia
Internship/Residency: Most often these days refers to your first year of Residency Training. Each of the specialties in medicine has established its own curriculum, which defines the length and content of residency training necessary to practice in that specialty. Residency Programs range from 3 years after medical school for internal medicine and pediatrics, to 5 years for general surgery, to 7 years for neurosurgery. Each specialty training program either incorporates an internship year to satisfy the requirements of state licensure, or stipulates that an internship year be completed before starting the program at the second post-graduate year (PGY-2).

Fellowship: A fellowship is a formal, full-time training program that focuses on a particular area within the specialty, with requirements beyond the related residency. Many highly specialized fields require formal training beyond residency. Examples of these include cardiology, endocrinology, oncology after internal medicine; cardiothoracic anesthesiology after anesthesiology; cardiothoracic surgery, pediatric surgery, surgical oncology after general surgery; reproductive endocrinology/infertility, maternal-fetal medicine, gynecologic oncology after obstetrics/gynecology. There are many others for each field of study. In some specialties such as pathology and radiology, a majority of graduating residents go on to further their training. The training programs for these fields are known as fellowships and their participants are fellows, to denote that they already have completed a residency and are board eligible or board certified in their basic specialty. Fellowships range in length from one to three years and are granted by application to the individual program or sub-specialty organizing board. Fellowships often contain a research component.